Tag: uk apple pay

The bank from the United Kingdom let it slip that the mobile payments service will be available in March.

U.K. bank, Barclays, has accidentally let it slip that Apple Pay is not just headed to its customers but that it is known exactly when it will be arriving and, according to the large financial institution, that will be in March.

The bank been the only major financial institution in the U.K. that hasn’t supported Apple’s mobile payments.

Customers at Barclays were the only ones with accounts at a large bank in the country that didn’t have the NFC technology based mobile payments from Apple Pay available to them. The service first became available last year in July, but the bank chose not to support those contactless payments for its iPhone carrying customers. However, the bank has now inadvertently provided confirmation that it will be arriving in March.

It was the CEO who accidentally let the release date of Apple Pay slip, when replying to an impatient customer’s email.

Ashok Vaswani, the CEO of Barclays, replied to an impatient customer’s email on January 12, giving confirmation that it would become possible to use an iPhone to complete mobile payments transactions within “60 to 75 days” of that time. That slip was all it took to provide a solid idea of when Apple’s mobile wallet would become available to customers of the bank as that is the only wallet app that is supported by the iPhone.

If Vaswani’s range of dates is accurate, it will mean that the iPhone’s mobile wallet will become available to Barclays customers at some point between March 13 and March 28. Still, despite the slip, the bank has yet to actually issue an official confirmation of the dates.

This will have Barclays joining Lloyds, Halifax, and every other large bank in the United Kingdom in offering Apple Pay to iPhone using customers. The reason for the delay in supporting the mobile wallet has not been offered by the bank. That said, it has been implied that there has been a disagreement between Apple and the bank with regards to the terms of supporting the service.

Many are predicting that the service from the tech giant is what the industry needs to take off.

Apple’s next step for its mobile payments service was in the United Kingdom, where it launched on July 14, and now many people are wondering the same thing that was asked in the United States when it began there: will this make the tech mainstream?

Analysts believe that Apple has the power and technology to take this type of service to mainstream levels.

The Apple mobile payments service is available for users of the iPhone 6 standard model and its Plus model, as well as for Apple Watch users. Currently, there are over 250,000 different locations throughout the United Kingdom that offer these contactless payments so that money can be paid through a card that is linked to the service, without ever having to take out the piece of plastic. Furthermore, the iPad Mini 3 and the iPad Air 2 have been equipped with the ability to use the service to make in-app purchases.

There are approximately 3 million devices in the U.K. that are compatible with this mobile payments service.

That statistic was according to Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. Its figures also showed that in all of December, 2014, in the U.K., there had been 46.1 million contactless smartphone based payments made. The consumer insights director of that firm, Imran Choudhary, explained that “The market wasn’t making enough noise but now Apple is on board that will all change,” adding that “They are the ones to tie it all together and with all the eligible devices it is only a matter of time before everyone gets on board.”

That said, many similar types of predictions were also made when Apple Pay was first launched in the United States. That service stepped into a market where there were already some massive players – such as Google Wallet and even Softcard, which shut down at the end of March, despite the involvement of three massive telecoms.

Many have been turning to Apple to launch several types of markets, including mobile payments and wearable technology, but only time will tell whether or not the tech giant has the sway that is required to make such as large change in the shopping habits of the majority of the population.